After a pro-PKK politician, who had been assumed missing since May, was found in a PKK camp in Northern Iraq, opposition parties and the ruling party told Daily Sabah that the pro-PKK HDP exploited the sensitivity of the Turkish public on the issue

AK Party Group Deputy Chairman Bülent Turan described the Külter incident as a well-planned operation that altered perception, asserting that “The HDP tried to disseminate the perception that people go missing during the detention period, trying to steer the country back to the 1990s. The Turkish people and even the international community were duped by this smoke and mirrors campaign; even U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby who made a statement about Külter’s fate,” Turan said.

Turan also drew attention to those AK Party politicians who have been killed by the PKK in recent months, saying that even though the Külter incident turned out to be entirely fabricated, the assassination of AK Party politicians is a cold, hard truth, pointing out that “In recent months the AK Party’s Beytüşşebap Youth Branch head Naci Adıyaman in Şırnak, deputy candidate Ahmet Budak in Hakkari and Özalp district head in Van province have all been assassinated by the PKK. The HDP has not raised its voice against these heinous murders and has remained silent. By doing so, the HDP is destroying its own legitimacy and the lives of Kurdish youths,” Turan concluded.